Decathlon cancels sale in France of sports hijab after outcry

Sports retailer Decathlon on Tuesday cancelled plans to sell an Islamic head covering for female athletes in France after an outcry from politicians and what it said were threats.

The decision was taken "to ensure the safety and security of our own teams," Decathlon head of communications Xavier Rivoire told RTL radio. The company had earlier written on Twitter that it had suffered an "unprecedented wave of insults and threats" over the product.

The French right has long sought to restrict the wearing of the Islamic headscarf, which is banned in schools.

Lydia Guirous, spokeswoman for the centre-right Les Republicains party, on Sunday accused Decathlon of submitting to Islamism by offering the product for sale on its French website. Decathlon initially responded by saying that the hijab was "a requirement of certain runners and we are therefore responding to this sporting requirement."

"I would have preferred for a French company not to promote the veil," Health Minister Agnes Buzin told RTL on Tuesday morning. But, she added, French secularism was not in danger from women "who wear the veil and have chosen to, whether in a sporting context or not."

Criticism of the reaction to the product came from a deputy in President Emmanuel Macron's centrist party.

"This obsession with the veil and Islam, lodged in the republican unconscious, is a French exceptionalism that we could well do without," Aurelien Tache wrote on Twitter.    (dpa)